


The Beauty of Fraldarius

by Meatbike344



Series: Fairy Tales in the Dark [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathing/Washing, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Bottom Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Fluff and Angst, Living Together, M/M, Protectiveness, Top Felix Hugo Fraldarius, True Love, Werewolves, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28222056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatbike344/pseuds/Meatbike344
Summary: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, crown prince of the northern kingdom of Faerghus, stumbled upon a black wolf bleeding out in the Fraldarius wilderness. It's leg caught in the deadly vice of a bear trap and awaiting death with every passing second.When that blue-eyed, golden crowned prince frees and heals the wounded beast, Dimitri would soon find himself in the twisted courtship of something much more bigger. Something both terrifying and intoxicating for the young man.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Fairy Tales in the Dark [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889569
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	The Beauty of Fraldarius

The story starts like this:

_A boy lies down on his back as though he were ready for slumber. He enjoys the softness of the fabric beneath him, the clean white of his sheets—ready to be soiled and destroyed by sin alone. He lies straight and still, legs somewhat bent loosely and arms at his side._

_The boy’s white shirt is unbuttoned, baring his white chest to the chilly winter air—eyes of golden lashes closed with a butterfly’s flutter, breast exposed with the pink of his nipples, and head thrown to one side like a slumbering beauty._

_There it goes: the three clicks that echoes into his room. The door knob creaking and the swing of the open door; the gentle shut followed by the rusted lock; and the slow footsteps up to the end of the bed. A shadow blanketed the boy’s half-naked form, eating up the sight so hungrily—a meal in the finest presentation and ready to be consumed._

_And the boy waits. He waits for the bed to shift with a sudden weight of his nighttime visitor. For the hot breath to brush up against his exposed neck. For the cold hand to slither over his chest in claim. And for the sharp fangs of the beast to claim the sleeping beauty._

_And then comes the name._

____________________

There was a trail of red in the snow.

Dimitri first saw it when he was wandering around the blue-frozen wilderness in search of the rest of his party. And there, splattering right against the sparkling white facade of disturbed snow was droplets of deep, red blood. It started near the outer birch trees and led deeper into the thicket, where all sounds and sights were snuffed by the darkness.

All around him, the forest whimpered and the muffled sounds of men echoed through the thin veil of cold— too far away to be heard, but the tones were growing frantic, scouring, searching for the seventeen-year-old prince who had wandered off. Dimitri’s eyes riveted from the thicket towards the depths of the white forest, before he tightened his blue cloak around himself and carefully proceeded forward.

The air was rich with the smell of Faerghus pine, snowdrops, and the metallic tinge of blood and flesh, growing more dense and overwhelming as the young prince slipped further into the gray wood; the light filtering from the canopy and boundless snow was all but extinguished, and Dimitri kept his gloved hands running along the spindling tree branches for bearing until he came across a dim clearing.

Right in the middle where just a single ray of winter light shone in from the cracks of the trees was a creature. A mangled mess of black fur matted with snow and blood, breathing very slowly with the herculean rise and fall of its shivering chest.

A wolf.

As Dimitri drew close with bated breath, he finally noticed the gleam of silver near the patch of bloody snow along with a trail of broken chains leading back from the treeline. A bear trap, one which clasped tightly and into the flesh of the creature’s thigh.

Suddenly, the wolf whimpered and weakly lifted its head; eyes amber and bright, burning like a thousand sunsets, lit up momentarily at the sight of the winter prince who hovered closely. And for a moment, the two stared at each other, unable to drag their gazes away not out of fear of attack but to wondering if the image before them was real; Dimitri could not help but become absorbed within the intense and all-consuming glare of the wolf, being burned alive from the inside out. It nearly melted the icy blue of his own pupils and suddenly, he felt vulnerable and hot.

Finally, the wolf dropped its head, breathing harshly through its fanged mouth, and made not another move. It had resigned itself to whatever fate Dimitri had for it, and the only thing the young boy could think of was kneeling down into the red snow, close to the bear trap.

Without a second thought and just the lurching pain of seeing the rawness of the wolf’s flesh being pierced so sharply by the metal teeth of the trap, he gripped the jaws and pried it wide open without much trouble. Blood spilled out from the liberation of the trap’s vice and the wolf gave a lone whimper.

Then silence.

Dimitri broke the trap in half, threw it into the bushes, and crawled over to the wolf’s head. Pain flooded his heart at the sight of the poor creature; its eyelids fluttering weakly and it let out another pained groan. The wolf must have been trapped for a while, unable to free itself, cursed to drag itself around helplessly until it bled out. Even with Dimitri freeing it, he knew that the wound was too deep for it to just get up and leave. There was also the cold to worry about, thirst and hunger.

And Dimitri, in his boyish wonder and care, immediately brought his hands over the pulsing wound. It was this moment where he silently thanked his magic tutors, at least the ones who pressed him so harshly to learn healing magic in case he was injured.

And while the boy was a novice, unpracticed, and definitely childlike in his methods, he, nonetheless, felt the warm glow of radiant heat pulsing through his veins and up into the tips of his fingers; light flooded out and over the bloody, exposed flesh.

As Dimitri kept his hands still, he noticed from the corner of his eyes that the wolf had lifted its head again; it was staring _at_ him, _at_ his hands, and _at_ the slow reconstruction of his thigh. Those red eyes flared up once again with heat, but—Dimitri felt a small smile grace his lips when the wolf’s gaze softened to that of subtle acknowledgment and almost an underlying relief.

Once the wound was fully healed, Dimitri withdrew his warm hands and stepped back. He watched as the wolf peered closely at where the bear trap once clasped over its body and then staggered up upon its legs—shaky from the long imprisonment.

Heated pants spilled out from its frantic muzzle as its body wavered a bit, but finally, the wolf was back on its legs. The creature blinked rapidly as if it had undergone some infantilizing rebirth, walking around in small, contained circles, and then stood facing Dimitri.

The young prince smiled, feeling his own cheeks glow up pink and bright. At the back of his mind, he could hear his father lecture him on the dangers of forest predators and the importance of hunting, but the only thing he could really think of was how the black wolf was still staring at him with a burning, intense expression—not out of hatred or suspicion but something close to gratitude. Here was not the presence of a young man and a creature of the deadly wilderness but two souls in admiration of each other.

In the distance, Dimitri could hear his escorts continuing to call out for him in a desperate, near agonizing plea—for the young prince to return lest their king should punish them for losing him during the travel through the woods. Dimitri glanced back at the wolf who was still watching him from a few feet away; he smiled warmly, gave a small wave, and turned back towards the mouth of the wood.

As he went out into the winter light, he felt the sharpened gaze of something possessive and yearning trail him from behind. But he did not turn around—afraid to turn around, even, and kept walking until he rejoined his small retinue of men. At the very least, the wolf would survive. And how strange of a creature it was from the rest of its kin: fur as black as the northern midnight and eyes like torturous flames in the pitch darkness.

Like a torch of protection.

____________________

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was the crown prince of Faerghus, an eternally cold and hostile northern kingdom savaged by ancient forest spirits, creatures from the shadows, and all sorts of bandits lurking deep within the confines of the snowy mountains and black woods.

As such, his father, King Lambert, was rather protective of his youthful son and often kept him close as they toured across Faerghus in order to keep the prince educated on the different holdings and situations of the land. The pair had been traveling around the weathered, bandit-infested midlands for months: from Rowe to Galatea, from Blaiddyd to Gautier.

Dimitri dutifully followed his father around the different villages and cities, taking note of the deep separation between the serfs and the lords that reigned over the lands, remembering every hand that held the whip and every name that forced themselves upon the wives of farming husbands. While Lambert was quick on the draw to reprehend and fine such crimes, Dimitri made a mental note to revisit such injustices later on when he should succeed his father.

Meanwhile, their travel across the country was incredibly treacherous. The sight of the royal armored carriage alone was an active beacon, which invited danger from all corners of the land. Bandits, highwaymen, and ravenous beasts often attempted to make a claim on the King’s touring party, only to be brutally cut down by the silver blade of a knight or Lambert’s executing lance.

Dimitri watched in silence from the protection of the armored carriage and always went white whenever his father—slathered in guts and blood, climbed in and comforted his son with a warm smile. He was rarely allowed to intercede himself. The King kept his heir safe. 

Another thing, that would have to wait until his crowning. 

Outside of the constant violence and inequality, Dimitri took time to take in the vast beauty of the northern kingdom. The overarching mountains and white forests that climbed up towards the gray heavens. The snowy wonderlands that stretched out to horizon and beyond to eternity. The gentle sun veiled by the ever-present winter curtain of storm clouds; a slow blue moon glowing among a sea of stars.

And it all came to a full stop when the royal carriage reached the coastal province of Fraldarius, where Dimitri finally interceded for himself. And fell deeply in love.

The coast was a sight to behold. Gray waves of icy water lugging against the cold shores of the rocky beaches. Bird cawing overhead and flying outwards the rainy horizon—black silhouettes fading away until they were nothing but thin lines across the sky.

There were still boats drifting along the waves with fishermen out and seated with their catch in-hand. The incandescent quiet of the coastline was one that had always followed the northern part of the country, as though it were covered in a thin layer of ice, preserved and perfect.

However, despite its beauty, Fraldarius was considered the most dangerous part of the country and with good reason: it had the biggest infestation of bandits and beasts—hungry and mindless, from the woods which surrounded the province. The roads became so impassable that it was wiser to take the back routes through the forest—at least then, there would not be any awaited ambushes.

“There used to be a vicious murderer that stalked this province,” Lambert said as the carriage passed the border. In the distance, the icy sea roared with greeting with the cries of birds. Dimitri kept his eyes on the coastline as his stomach dropped. “It was a few years ago but there was a wandering rouge who cut down anyone who crossed his path. Men, beast, women, child—nothing was left alive in his blood lust. He was Death itself, traveling from village to village, claiming lives indiscriminately.”

“What happened to the killer, father? Is he still alive?” Dimitri asked in a hushed voice. The boy pulled his furred cloak around his neck and tucked himself in, taking in the warmth.

Lambert hummed quizzically and shook his head. “I don’t think so. He disappeared one day and never showed up again. My scouts believe he may have been devoured by a beast—flesh and bones all! I mean, that’s good news, especially since we don’t have to content with such a foe, but this province is still dangerous, for reasons more than just a madman with a blade.”

“I’m sure we will be fine, father. Once we take care of Fraldarius, will we be heading home?”

“Indeed. How I desire to jump right into the business of dealing with our ruined lands. And it gladdens me that you are open to seeing the reality of our country, Dimitri. Though...a boy shouldn’t be traveling across such dangerous places...”

“Don’t feel bad, father. I wanted to come! Ignorance to the plights of my people will not help me in the future, anyhow.”

Lambert reached over and ruffled his son’s short hair with a half smile. “You’re smart, lad. Stay close, all the same. I’ll keep you safe.”

Dimitri nodded obediently and craned his head out the window. The land before him was unraveling in all of its darkness—this seeping, hungry shadow, which beckoned him from beyond. Eyes of predators peered out from their enclaves in wait, glowing malevolently and right at the golden-haired prince with eyes of a juvenile springtime sky.

Innocence. Purity. Untouched beauty.

And the tragedy of it all was that Dimitri himself knew it. Too many times back in Gautier and Rowe, the touring party had close calls where the bandits nearly got away with the starry-eyed boy in their tight grip. While Dimitri was not particularly hurt, the poor prince had grown weary of stepping out of his carriage, only climbing out once before he was called to when one of the wheels popped out in the middle of the forest.

And… that time with the wolf. 

After wandering off on his own for a moment, Dimitri came back suspiciously renewed and continued traveling with the party, who kept a close eye on the prince. Even as he felt the eyes of a predator follow him, stalking him ever since they left the forest.

And it never left him.

____________________

The bandits of Fraldarius were being slaughtered and left out to rot on the open road and no one knew why. It was King Lambert who noticed that the procession had had a suspiciously untroubled journey to one of the walled villages—something unseen when the party was touring around the other provinces.

Even in Blaiddyd they had dealt a few nasty ambushes and that was near their own capital. It was Dimitri who noticed that the bandits and highwaymen were dead all along the road they were occupying—freshly killed and torn apart by something great and clawed.

And father and son had put together that there was something even more dangerous than just wicked men with swords—there was an active creature hunting these men down left and right, and the touring party was next. Or, at least that was what Lambert and the knights believed.

His son, on the other hand, was able to see through all the dead, half-torn bodies of bandits and marauders, and recognized that the murders were intentional. These were bad men—not an innocent soul of a villager or traveler among them. What made it even more suspicious was that the official reports stated that the murders were occurring recently on the road the touring party was traveling on and no where else in the province.

The only conclusion Dimitri could come to: something was killing the bandits ahead of them. 

While the King quietly panicked, his large hand gripped tense on his lance, Dimitri sat on the other side daydreaming. He was watching the road, watching the woods, watching for any movement and the reveal of their mysterious protector.

The procession came across another pile of bodies left on the side of the road the next day, this time positioned in a twisted, careful fashion with the leader right on top of his men, the strips of his chest pulled open like a wrapper and showcasing his heart—a display of absolute brutality, a declaration almost; misinterpreted by the king and his men, but it sounded clearly to the white prince.

To them, it was a promise of murder. To him, he could see it was one of protection. Of _devotion_. All twisted, dark, and bestial animals, but for the prince in pure white with blue eyes and sunlit hair, it was clear as a summer's day. Dimitri’s heart thudded softly and he felt himself blushing at the display. Like a maiden witnessing a portrait being drawn of her, so inevitably drawn to the artist and his work.

Perhaps something was wrong with him.

No one should be this enamored with murder. And yet, he could not help but stare wide-eyed at the grisly pile—at the bandit leader whose white eyes stared up at the unresponsive heavens with his exposed chest as an offering—and a small, boyish smile slit across his face. At the back of his head, Dimitri felt it once more: the stare of _something_ following him, far off and unseen.

And it was eating him from inside out like a ravening flame.

____________________

There was another problem.

The carriage had struck another icy ditch in the middle of the road but this time, the entire thing collapsed with the front wheel crushed; they were thrown around at impact, and the prince found himself tumbled out the window and onto the snowy ground. His escorts rushed over to the boy as the king stepped out of the lopsided carriage and peered over to the fallen side. The wheel had landed a few feet away in the barren grass, shattered in bits. 

Lambert scratched the back of his head and stared forlornly at the broken wheel then to the carriage where the empty socket was deeply sunk into the cold mud. Dimitri joined him and the pair stood in silence as the royal party scrambled to work; this was the second time the wheel had popped out during the tour and now the winter prince keenly understood that they would need to make a whole new one.

“Dimitri, stay here with the others. I’ll make sure we have a working wheel by the morning,” Lambert announced in a thick tone—diplomatic and ended all future discussion from the worried son. Dimitri’s mouth dropped but no words came. Instead, the prince nodded dutifully as the entire party scrambled about.

With that, the king’s men went to work on fixing the carriage and constructing a better wheel. The lumbers already set off into the woods with Lambert leading the charge once they relocated the carriage to the side of the main road.

Meanwhile, the rest of the staff stayed behind to construct a temporary camp; hunters off to catch dinner, the chefs and maids setting up tents and campfires, and the remaining knights created a perimeter around it all and stood guard. Dimitri, who sat in the dark, watched all of the chaos unfold with dull, childlike boredom.

He was always used to something like this, having to stay behind as everyone else did all of the heavy work. It was not that the prince was not strong—he was, incredibly so, like his father. But the mere fact that a seventeen-year-old boy who was definitely, in the eyes of all of the people around him, still a child with a doting, over-protective father, in a cruel and dark country.

Dimitri tried his best to help around but the staff gently shrugged him off and pushed for the boy to sit still and let them do the dirty work.

He sighed out loudly, no longer wanting to watch everyone move about without him. But there was nothing more he could do, especially since Lambert was more than adamant about him coming along with the lumbers to cut down trees.

All he could do is sit and wait.

Suddenly, a maid passing by, carrying a mead barrel, slipped on a wet patch in the mud and fell forward. The barrel dropped from her outstretched hands and rolled down past Dimitri and into the icy woods below with loud sloshing.

An opportunity for escape.

The prince immediately shot up and announced that he would fetch it, a restrained voice strained with excitement; he turned around and dashed after the barrel, which dropped through the bushes and kept rolling down the hardened frozen soil. Dimitri steadied his footwork as he navigated around the ground, watching as the barrel rolled through a thicket—the sound of mead sloshing about and fading away with every second.

Without another thought to the voices calling back for his return, the prince continued running after the lost supply of drink. The woods of Fraldarius were notorious for its jagged geography with sudden cliffs, rocks, and jutting boulders due to the coastline.

Dimitri nearly slipped a few times as he continued in his pursuit. At some point, the land flattened below him until he felt his boots strike the tail end of a stream. There was a loud splash ahead of him and Dimitri could only guess that the barrel had landed in water.

When the prince crossed through the thick branches and bushes, he had come across an clearing—a semi-frozen lake stretching out a bit far and near, with nothing but white trees surrounding on all sides. Overhead, the sun had disappeared in place of a very gentle and thin moon, slyly breaking through the snowy mist of the northern sky with just slithers of light slipping through.

And there, Dimitri saw _him_.

A spirit. A water nymph? A forest guardian? His mind raced desperately to find answers as he laid his eyes on a creature of petrifying beauty. 

In essence, beyond all theories be it magical or otherwise, there was a naked boy bathing in the water.

Dimitri’s entire body went hot with an unbidden heat, his cheeks stinging as his eyes stayed glued on the bathing stranger. The boy’s slender back was turned to him; a few bold rays of moonlight breaking through the mist bounced off porcelain white skin, glistening from the water like marble. Long hair spayed out like trails of spilled black ink from a bottle, going down from his slender neck to the elegant curve of his spine, dripping wet and gleaming as if it were becoming liquid itself. He bent over to cup some water in the palm of his hands, revealing a set of strong milky legs and a full and round derriere—something _writhed_ in Dimitri’s brain and he made a weak sound.

The boy suddenly turned around and the prince met with a gaze of fire—two eyes spilling over like a thousand suns ready to burst and consume the very snow around them. An intense face of burning beauty, staring wide-eyed at the stranger frozen right at the bank of the lake; Dimitri did not move, the boy did not move, and neither of them could say a thing.

The prince’s heart beat so violently against his rib cage that he wondered if the boy could hear his fear and excitement. Seeing him fully in the moonlight was elevating all feelings, all sensations: the boy, unmoving, unreal as though he were a statue flourishing to life, pulled back his pink lips and revealed a set of dagger fangs, glistening red.

A red half crescent smile—the blood moon. Greeting him, _beckoning_ to him. A siren’s silent song.

Dimitri finally broke away from his paralysis; he snatched up the barrel, which was drifting along the water, and sputtered out a nervous string of apologies— _ImsorryImsorryImsorryIdidntseeanything_ —and broke out into a run back into the woods, trying to abandon the fever that fell upon him.

It was warm and fuzzy like the heat of a far-coming summer.

And behind him, that familiar, possessive stare followed him, from the thicket, from the wood, all the way to the camp where Dimitri was tortured all night. The poor prince laid next to his exhausted father and stared up at the leather flap of his tent.

He could not sleep. He even tried to close his eyes and count Gautier sheep, but all efforts were dominated by another image: white skin like snow—black hair of spilled ink—red eyes, a sunset ready to explode across the sky.

Red teeth, curled in a beckoning small. 

Dimitri laid in his cot and counted the quickened beats of his heart. This rapid, excited little thing, racing blood through his veins as his mind stayed on the thought of the bathing beauty. And another image emerged: the bandit leader, lying on top of his men, white eyes to a cruel sky—the flaps of his chest and ribs pulled out like wings, ready to take flight. A heart presented like an offering.

In the woods nearby, _something_ was watching him. _Something_ was there. _Something_ was waiting. And the young winter prince closed his eyes, fell back into the darkness, and slept peacefully as a child. 

Dimitri fell in love. That’s how most fairy tales began.

Unfortunately, the poor boy knew that his love was neither a forest maiden or a princess, but something inhuman. Something animalistic. Something ancient. And it belonged to the bottomless, black realm beyond the safe high walls of mankind. Deep in the suffocating unseeable woods. Deeper into the soul of the beast.

And the white prince dreamed of a dream coated red, black and white.

____________________

For the next few days, the tour went off without much disturbance. They visited different villages and took notes of the different problems in the region—mostly a food shortage and how the cool winter mixed with the salt water made things typically hard to grow. Even the lords had to step out of their estates to help their own serfs.

There were still bodies lining up all along the road on the royal party’s route forward. While everyone else swallowed down their trepidation and looked on with open disgust, Dimitri was too starry eyed to share the same sentiment. He stared out of the window, at the gray cold landscape, and sighed softly—a princess trapped in a tower, awaiting her love to rescue her.

Only he was a prince, his tower was the carriage, and his ‘love’ was certainly something that could eat him inside out.

And Dimitri found he did not mind one bit.

Ever since that fateful night in the woods, all Dimitri could think about was the boy. The memory of him in the water was intoxicating. A draught of blood, water, and white, _white_ skin. Dimitri was human and his addiction was something from the _other_ side—a beautiful illustration of the siren’s call of mortals, luring them over to the jaws of death so willingly. Even in his dreams, the boy beckoned him with a bloody smile and an outstretched hand, fingers curling in-ward as if to suggest for the prince to step forward and taste him.

Lambert, who watched his son with a worried gaze, wondered if the boy was sick. Dimitri knew he was sick—just not in the way his father was assuming; what kind of person would get so excited and enamored at the sight of bestial terror and death? Perhaps it was merely the natural consequence of the naïve and pure, to be ever so attracted to unknown horror and corruption, lured away like a lost sailor at sea.

However, the daydreaming ended when the carriage came to a complete halt. Both father and son blinked back to reality at the sudden jolt of the car, staring at one another in confusion before they leaned their heads out the window.

At the far front where the party was led by the king’s head knights and navigators, the horses had stopped right at what appeared to be a collapsed woman. She was laying in the mud with light salmon hair sprayed out and covered in muck from a terrible fall. One of the knights got off his horse and bent over to inspect the poor woman.

Something was wrong; Dimitri could sense it. Something was wrong, not only with the woman, but with the world outside of the carriage. With the air. With the forest. Something was changing— _shifting_ with a seeping malevolence that practically choked Dimitri dry.

Suddenly, he felt scared. He was scared.

The child in him swelled up fiercely and he reached out to grab his father’s large hand. The king tore his gaze away from the commotion outside and peered over to Dimitri. The man’s brows were knit tightly and the son knew his father felt the same uneasiness. The king then shifted back in his seat and leaned out the window, craning his head towards the front where he called out:

“Mind the woman! We have to keep---”

Then the fire roared.

Dimitri’s ears exploded and hot, boiling flames filled his sight as the carriage flew upward and out in a violent tumble. The boy felt his grip on his father’s hand slip away and he tumbled out the door in a whirl, rolling along the ground. In the distance, more flames exploded with a thunderous rumble as the horses screeched wildly and fled in different directions.

There was screaming, the sound of steel colliding with steel, and the panicked call of his father—he was searching, they were searching, but Dimitri could not see them. All around him was fire, death, and a terrible heat, which he could not breath.

The prince’s bloody hands wrapped around his throat, and he bent down below the thick smoke, choking as he crawled through fields of dead horses and destroyed caravans. Black silhouettes were running back and forth behind the veil in a flurry, figures fighting off an invisible enemy.

Dimitri could not get up. His legs were jelly beneath his frame and he ended up collapsing with a weak groan. When the prince blinked rapidly, his vision cleared up somewhat, and he looked up and met with the rueful gaze of a stranger; she had emerged from the deep smoke and chaos, and stood right over him—the woman who fell in front of the party, with shift pink hair and cruel eyes. She smiled like a dagger and pointed to the petrified prince with a single index finger—her nail as sharp as a knife.

“There you are, my _beloved_ prince. We’ve been looking for you~” She cooed in a melodic voice, akin to a bird’s long song in the night.

Beside her, two robed mages emerged from the veil of black smoke and peered down at the boy. She made a short gesture at him, smirking a bit with victory, and they nodded. The mages stepped forward with their hands out, red magic glowing and ready to strike.

And all Dimitri could do is gasp like a fish on land as his legs scrambled desperately beneath him. But he ended up falling back, watching wide-eyed as the mages came closer—the woman was laughing out with her arms crossed, and all around them, the flames roared.

Dimitri closed his eyes and waited for death. He waited for the darkness to seep in and claim his vision. But it never came. Instead, he heard a pained scream from above him and he opened his eyes. The blurred figure dashed around the space and the mages held their gnawed out throats as blood sprayed out in violent, erratic directions; they fell forward, bodies jerking uncontrollably, and went limp.

Meanwhile, the woman stepped back with electricity shooting out of her open palm and an irritated look on her cruelly beautiful face. The attacker was too quick—too strong for her to fend off, and finally, she threw a look at Dimitri and snarled with her teeth.

“Urggh! Fine! I’ll take the boy myself!” She declared boldly and strolled up to the prince with her arms over her head, ready to cast devastatingly powerful spells upon the boy.

Dimitri covered his face, arm stretched out over his eyes in anticipation. But before she could throw down the magic, something pulled him back. The prince was not sure what was happening, other than the vast movement of fire and bodies all around him—a field of magic exploded and spilled out, reaching for him but he was out of it’s reach, flying so fast that he almost felt like floating.

Dimitri blinked rapidly and craned his weakened head down, to see that he was riding on a large wolf—it's familiar black fur in between his sweaty fingers. It sped through the chaos, through the smoke, through the flames—heaven and hell conjoined together in calamity.

His breath never came; it was smothered beneath the heat and the prince’s head felt light. He wavered a bit and felt himself falling to the side, into that hungry pit of the darkness that awaited him at the very bottom.

And it felt so soft and warm.

____________________

Dimitri woke up in a bed.

A soft, warm bed.

He wondered if he had been dreaming, but he had not properly dreamed in years. His fingers coiled instinctively into the sheets, shivering unconsciously as the warmth flooded into his cold skin. He took long breaths in intervals of three and looked around the room.

It was not his room back in Fhirdiad nor was it the guesthouse of any village they had previously stayed at. Instead, it was an incredibly dark and dusty old space, with particles floating around the air from the gentle glow of the moonlight flooding in from a window pane.

The prince slowly got up only to discover that his neck and chest was wrapped tightly in bandages with a dull pain throbbing beneath an invisible wound.

He placed his hand over his chest and breathed out, anguished. There he sensed movement next to him and looked over at a strange sight. A dark-haired stranger slumped over on the side of the bed with his face buried beneath his white arms, shoulders rising and falling with every breath.

Dimitri, whose own vision was still painfully cloudy from sleep, leaned forward to get a better look at his attendant. Finally, the sleeping form shifted awake and the boy rose with a groggy yawn—that was when Dimitri’s heart stopped and his entire skin went hot with a flushing fever.

His mouth dropped ever so slightly as the boy—the beauty bathing that night in the woods, rose with a soft yawn. He did not seem to notice Dimitri at first until he rubbed his eyes—burning, dying sunsets—and peered up, blinking into vision.

The boy stopped. A fiercely intense expression brightened like a glaring, all consuming sun. Neither of them moved, so taken in by each other’s presence that their breaths stopped simultaneously.

Icy blue and hot red. White and black. Gold and blue.

Finally, Dimitri let out a soundless breath and braced himself in reaching out. His long fingers grazed ever so slightly against the boy’s cheeks—hot to the touch despite the paleness, and he slipped a strand of black hair out of his flaring eyes.

They stood still, as if afraid any movement would scare the other. Finally, the boy’s hand slowly went up and gently grasped over Dimitri’s wrist—right over the pulse, his thumb connecting over his finger in a strangely possessive vice. He did not move, as if to take in the quick beating of his vein.

Dimitri then found the strength to speak, but his voice came out in a childlike squeak.

“You...saved me.”

“Yes.” The boy’s voice had a deep resonance, almost like an echo rebounding from somewhere close and hollow.

“You. You were the wolf. The one I saved, aren’t you?”

The boy nodded very, _very_ slowly. There was a hint of a smile, but too small to truly be called one. "Yes.”

“I...is my father okay? The traveling party?”

“I don’t know. I took you here before the mages could take you.” A pregnant pause; red eyes rolling up in a passing thought before rolling back down. “But if it makes you feel any better, I saw him before I left. He was with his men and had taken down some of the assassins.”

“Then I need to get to---” A sharp pain climbed from his neck to his head and he choked out, whimpering weakly. The boy released his grip on Dimitri’s wrist and immediately leaned over the prince with a deep, attentive stare.

“You cannot leave. The mages are still searching for you. And you are hurt.”

“I can heal myself.”

“Not with your magic. You inhaled too much smoke. You need to stay here and stay safe.”

Dimitri blinked. “Then...what about my father and the rest of the party?”

“I will keep searching for them. But for now, you will stay here,” the boy stated. It was a command—a plain truth, and one he aimed to keep. His eyes narrowed into two red slits and he leaned forward, practically hovering over the winter prince with an eerily oppressive presence. “You cannot leave, do you understand me? We cannot let those mages know where you are.”

“But, I don’t understand. Who are they? Why did they attack us?” Dimitri asked desperately as his chest throbbed.

“I'm not sure. Probably a rebel group hoping to use you as a bargaining chip against the kingdom. Either way, you are not safe out there. Stay here—I will go fetch you some food.”

“Wait!” Dimitri grabbed the boy’s hand, pushing down the hot feeling sweltering in his stomach.

He looked at him, waiting. _You’re beautiful_ , Dimitri wanted to say. _I think I love you._ Words belonging to a child, not a man. Adults knew better than to trust their feelings upon first instinct- kings and princes, if nothing else, should know better. _Is it possible to meet the one you love at first sight?_ Dimitri knew that this was no storybook tale and yet he could not help but think so.

He was so enamored by the dark-haired beauty, a glimpse into what those older than him always chatted about—the consuming sensation one felt when they met someone they wished to _know._ And yet, the boy in front of him was no human. He was a beast, bleeding out in the snow, black fur and red eyes. He was concealing a frightfully monstrous identity beneath his youthful mask.

Dimitri noticed a bright flame flickering behind the boy’s sharp gaze and it excited him.

“What’s your name?” He asked in a hush. Every touch left him aching but all he wanted to do was to hold this boy's hand—entwine their fingers and hold on forever.

The corners of the boy’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, curing up a bit into a rueful half smile. There, that voice came out once again, a deep lullaby that never stopped echoing deeper and deeper until Dimitri was lost in the sound.

“Felix.”

____________________

What Dimitri discovered in the following week of his stay with Felix:

One, that he was currently residing within a grand old mansion. The estate was located so far and deep in the Fraldarius wilderness that he could only see miles and miles of trees and mountains in the horizon, neither the main road nor the coastline. The area here was also much colder with a certain biting harshness that forced him to keep a blanket around his body at all times.

Two, that Felix was a werewolf, the fated creature his father always read to him about as a child—a dangerous shape-shifter from a normal man to a feral beast at will, hungry and inhuman.

However, Felix’s wolf form was merely that of a normal wolf, a bit larger than the average creature, but not monstrously huge as depicted in the story books. He still hunted and behaved rather bestial, with the only human traits being a very terse form of speech.

And three, that Felix could only stay in his human form for a short period before being forced back into his wolf form. An hour at most, actually.

Dimitri witnessed it himself when Felix was showing him around the dark mansion. After the pair exited the bathhouse and started silently down the corridor, Felix suddenly doubled down in pain and fell to his knees.

Dimitri immediately came over to help him but instead found himself hovering over a black wolf on four legs. The creature lifted its head at him, red eyes downcast with some tinkling of embarrassment. After a moment, Felix made a strange noise in his throat, then nudged his head against Dimitri’s immobilized thighs. He pushed the boy down the corridor and continued the tour as if nothing ever happened.

The wolf could not speak, merely making growls and whimpers, but the gestures were enough for Dimitri to understand: the bathhouse, library, kitchen, dining room, training room, and lounge were all open to him. The upstairs area was forbidden.

After that, the pair sat on Dimitri’s bed and stared at each other, still trying to make sense of their presence. The young prince felt bold enough to reach over and scratch the back of Felix’s ears, feeling the softness of his black fur. The wolf stiffened by the boy’s hand, but nonetheless, leaned into the touch with his eyes closed.

When night fell, Dimitri found himself slumped over in bed, the blankets threw over his shivering form and a mangled pile of black fur cuddled close against his chest.

Blinking at the sight before him, Dimitri sighed—he allowed the warmth of young love to flood his heart, and gently wrapped his arm around the wolf, pulling him closer until he could hear the creature’s very slow breathing.

In the morning, Felix was back to his human form, but only for an hour. His hair was let down, long and black past his shoulders, and he stared at Dimitri with those same petrifying eyes like a scorching sun. He nudged the prince’s shoulders and prompted him over to the infirmary where he’s been applying a cooling glaze over his wounds every day, with an hour of herbal steaming in the bathhouse order to expel the remaining smoke in his lungs.

“You can only stay as a human for an hour, Felix. Why?” Dimitri asked one morning after Felix wrapped his body in new bandages. The dark-haired boy kept his gaze straight and detached, so methodical in his bizarrely tender care that he hardly seemed to acknowledge Dimitri’s inquiry at all. But he still answered in a short grunt.

“That’s how long I can last before transforming into a beast again. An hour a day.”

“Why though?”

“Limits of my curse.”

“ _Oh_.”

A curse.

The most feared fate in the northern kingdom—to be hexed by a spiteful witch or a mage. Dimitri had seen some of the more comical results of curses such as the one time his father’s minister was cursed to hiccup for three days after making a passing remark at a sorceress.

But the more dangerous curses were the types that can hurt people and cause destruction. Like the girl whose sighs could summon monstrous beasts without her control or the maiden whose curse caused death and misfortune around her. Felix’s curse was more punishing of himself, by being forced to take on a bestial form with just an hour of sanctuary every day.

“Is there...anything that can be done?” Dimitri said with a deep swallow.

Felix shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I long abandoned any reason to break the curse. It’s too late.”

“You shouldn’t say that!” The prince declared loudly and held Felix’s shoulders. The dark-haired boy stared at him, wide-eyed and a bit flushed as Dimitri drew in close. “Do you know the way to break the spell? I can help you!”

“You can’t help me. No one can help me,” Felix uttered in a deep, spiteful growl and nudged the prince’s hands away. “Forget about it. I’ve been trying for years to no avail. This is just how it’s going to be from now on.”

“But---”

“And besides, we need to focus on you. I’ll find your father and you can return to your happy little castle on a hill without a worry in that pretty head of yours.”

“Felix---”

“Seriously. Don’t worry about it. I mean it,” he said with a shake of his head, ending all pursuit of the subject. His hands dropped to his side, still clutching on the gauze and bandages loosely. The wind blew with the thin branches of the trees scratching all along the windows.

No one said a thing. Just the sound of the northern wind and the forest rumbling deeply along. And finally, Dimitri nodded sympathetically and gestured with an open palm towards Felix.

“I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again, Felix. Here, I can take care of the wrapping myself. You can go rest and eat for the day.”

“No, I saw your sloppy handiwork. Let me do it,” the dark-haired boy grunted stubbornly and went back to task at hand with a bit of a grumble below his voice. Dimitri buried the laugh gurgling at the pit of his voice and made no attempt to hide the wide smile across his face; Felix kept his own expression down and obscured, though his white ears turned pink.

“Why did you save me? You’re going through so much work to even take care of me.”

“I’m returning the favor. Now we’re even.”

“I mean, all I did was take the bear trap off your thigh and heal you. You could just let me go so I won’t bother you anymore…”

“Right,” Felix scoffed and shook his head. “Take a good look at you. No offense, Dimitri, but you would not last a minute in those woods considering everything.”

“ _Considering everything_?” Dimitri repeated back, his voice climbing in an octave. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“All this,” Felix explained, gesturing to all of Dimitri, and giving him a light pat on the chest; Dimitri winced with an incredulous look. “It’s like slathering a rabbit in blood and tossing them in the middle of a wolf’s den. If you’re not gobbled up first by beasts _bigger_ than me, then you’ll surely be gang-raped by all those marauders and used for ransom against the kingdom. So no, I’m not letting you walk out the door until _daddy dearest_ is found and brought here to take you home.”

“Wow.”

“Wow what?”

Dimitri grinned foolishly. “You really thought this through, Felix.”

Felix’s grimace came on strong and fierce, and the boy dropped the bandage roll and gauze onto the floor with a defiant snarl. He backed away, made an obscene gesture at the prince, and strolled out of the room, leaving Dimitri half bandaged and deeply enamored.

____________________

As the prince soon discovered, Felix was a surprisingly pushy yet attentive host.

He always kept Dimitri moving along with his treatment and making sure the prince stayed put as he went off for the day—usually to hunt and continue in his tracking of the king. So far, there was not any news from any of the villages, though that was better than outright tragedy.

When he returned at night in his wolf form, he made the effort of greeting Dimitri in the kitchen with either a dead deer or some rabbits, and a semi-affectionate nudge against his thigh. The prince, who was taught how to hunt and prepare game before he could even read, immediately went to work on skinning the kill for dinner.

Felix always watched the cooking from Dimitri’s legs, sprawling out with his entire fluffy body pressed on top of the prince’s boots—his tail thumping very mildly along. The dark haired boy seldom showed any emotion at all in his human form, only sparing Dimitri a ghost of a smile once in a while and very cold and distant words.

But as a wolf, he was much more affectionate—much more open and wanting of Dimitri’s touch and attention. He even followed the prince around the mansion, not so much as to track him for he knew Dimitri would not betray his trust, but to simply be near him.

However, the great oddity was Felix’s human form. Or rather, the time in which he transformed. Usually, the boy liked to be present in the morning where he could wake up Dimitri, change his bandages, and pushed him along before his wolf form kicked in. However, this routine shifted somewhat with the passing of days as did his own secret intentions.

Dimitri now awoke to the soft pitter patter of paws clawing at his blanket and opened his eyes to a set of fangs baring down at him from above along with the usual red eyes. The wolf sniffed him, licking the side of his groggy face as if to stir him up, and sat with a watchful eye.

Once Dimitri got out of bed and took care of himself that morning, Felix headed off for an early hunt and search. He started coming back earlier as well and Dimitri keenly sensed that it was because the wolf detested staying away for too long.

It did not help that the prince was openly affectionate. He often petted the creature and liked to gently cup his hands on both sides of the wolf’s face; staring right into Felix’s pupils, he smiled softly, and scratched the tender spots behind his ears and neck—this turned out to be Felix’s favorite spot to be touched and he was always lulled into a peaceful half-sleep as a result.

Afterwards, Dimitri explored the mansion as he left the wolf alone to sleep in a pile of make-shift blankets; Felix always woke up much later and found him anyway.

It was the evenings where Felix chose to transform back into his true form, usually around dinner time. When he was still a wolf, Dimitri was gestured to simply throw the carcass onto the ground near his feet in the dining room; the creature pulled and snarled wildly until flesh ripped from bone, and Dimitri could only watch in a stilled horror and admiration.

Sometimes, in his usual boyish fashion, he hand fed Felix scraps from the table, shivering a bit at the coarseness of the wolf’s lapping tongue. 

Of course, this changed when Felix decided that he would like to spend dinners as a himself—human. Dimitri assumed that he probably just wanted to chat with him, but as it turned out, the werewolf was just sick and tired of eating from the ground.

This _hardly_ altered the way he ate, however, for Felix still devoured food like a beast—feral and wild. But he still liked to sit next to Dimitri, as the wolf in him liked to sit near his feet. 

While they did not speak much, the boys always ate together with neither one betraying this time for another. Once Felix went back into his wolf form, that was the sign for Dimitri to retire for the night. He carefully laid down as not to irritate the constant pain in his neck and chest, and shifted to the side of the body of the black beast to settle beside him.

Once Felix curled up beside him with his head pressed up against Dimitri’s side, the prince brought his hand over the wolf’s body and they fell into a deep, synchronized slumber

Naturally, as the days went on, their relationship, too, began to slowly unravel into a much different form. Something foreign. Something scary. Something exciting. And all immensely, absolutely consuming.

____________________

It was the early morning—midnight passing over towards the edge of dawn, when Dimitri stirred.

Light had yet to breach through the thin curtains of his room and the shadows blanketed everything in a soft dimness. At his side, Felix was still curled up in a deep sleep with the wolf’s body rising and falling with every small puff. Meanwhile, the prince’s chest and neck still ached terribly and his muscles were abnormally stiff.

He never woke up this early before. It felt strange, like he trespassed onto a time not meant for him or anyone for that matter. In fact, Dimitri did not know what else to do but lay there, gently running his fingers through Felix’s soft black fur and staring up at the dark ceiling. It had been a few weeks now since his arrival to the mansion and news have yet to surface about his father.

Though Felix was able to catch some rumors that the royal party survived the assault and are hunting down the assassins, probably under the presumption that the prince was taken by them. But rumors were rumors and they hardly gave Dimitri any piece of mind.

And there he was: Laying in bed, sweaty and cold, with a sleeping werewolf, located in a mansion miles and miles and miles away from civilization.

After a while of listening to the wind howling through the deep woods and the scratching of bare tree branches against the thin, frosted glass, Dimitri slowly rose from the bed. Careful in slipping off without waking up the wolf, the prince’s feet winced a bit at the cold floor and he quietly left the bedroom. The mansion was a huge thing, cast in an eternal aching darkness with just the aid of moonlight glowing through the windows and sometimes the weak flicker of candles.

Dimitri lit a portable lantern, which always hung from the side of his door and carefully went down the black corridor. Despite the dawn, it was still too dark for his eyes to make sense of his surroundings. Everything was too cold, too quiet, and hiding bitterly in the shadows as if any invading light would irritate the atmosphere. Eventually, the prince’s hand was able to grasp around the bathhouse door and he pushed it open.

The echoing sound of water dripping greeted the prince’s ears along with a welcoming, kind warmth. Dimitri carefully stepped inside and placed the lantern down at the mineral table; he took a match and lit some of the stationary candles around the master tub until the shadows backed away into the very corners of the bathhouse.

The white, marble tiles on the walls have never been so white and cold and for some reason, the flickering of the candles simply made everything feel lonely. The master bath tub, which was wide enough to fit an entire party of ten people, was already filled with warm mineral water from last night’s long bathing, and Dimitri merely stripped everything off before slipping inside.

The deep and flooding warmth of the water meeting with icy cold skin nearly made Dimitri yelp out; he grit his teeth, allowing the heat to climb up from his legs to his neck, and there came the utter sigh of relief and submission. His body went limp and he slid down the marble side of the tub until his neck was submerged.

The prince faced the closed door of the bathhouse and closed his eyes, leaning his head back to the ceiling and listening to the echoes of water droplets. It came like a far-away lullaby and all thoughts of the king slowly faded from his mind, allowing nothing but a limbo of sleep to overtake him.

These dark nights have petrified him so terribly, in the sense where the boy could not differentiate between feeling relaxed and safe in Felix’s mansion to absolute terror at the unknown, at the whereabouts of his father and their touring party, and the assassins who clearly attempted to kidnap him in the chaos. It was these soothing solitary moments in the water that gave him great and immense comfort.

As Dimitri’s body relaxed in the warmth, the sound of the door creaked every so slightly. His eyes fluttered quickly as though he were stirring from a troubled sleep and he lifted his head up towards the dim darkness.

A looming shadow with two glowing red eyes had slipped in between the crack of the door and sat right at between the borders of light and darkness. It stared at Dimitri and tilted its head. The prince’s heart stopped momentarily before a gentle smile lit across his face, and he leaned forward. He stretched his arms out and beckoned the wolf forward.

“Wanna take a morning bath with me, Felix? I’ll clean out all the blood from your fur from yesterday’s hunt,” he asked lightly, not once noticing how the wolf’s gaze suddenly burned like disturbed coal.

After a moment, the wolf got up and slowly trespassed into the flickering light of the bathhouse. The candles radiated the matted parts of the creature’s fur, kept together from a bloody insurance with an elk; Felix stood right at the edge of the tub, peering down the water and up to Dimitri, his gaze riveting all over the prince’s shamelessly naked body.

His look was a foreign one, one Dimitri both never seen from him before but keenly recognized. It was hunger. It was possession. It was yearning. And suddenly, the boy’s cheeks flushed red from the sensation.

Finally, the wolf slipped into the warm water—which immediately clouded pink with strands of black hair flaring out like a drop of ink in a clear basin, spreading outward and thin. Felix circled the water a bit with his head poking out from the surface, and then, he paddled right over to Dimitri. The two stared at each other, almost afraid of moving, before the wolf turned around and nudged the back of it’s head into the prince’s open palm.

Dimitri laughed out, the sound echoing through the bathhouse, and he began to gently scrub the creature’s fur. The water around them dyed pink like coastal flowers with the soap bubbling up red, but Dimitri gave it no mind.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t take a bath last night, Felix. I mean, you can just sit in the tub and let the water clean you out,” he stated with a hum.

Felix snorted and shook his head, large ears fluttering about insincerely.

“Oh, why not? Unless you rather prefer cleaning yourself when you actually have control of your hands. Then I would suggest keeping your transformation reserved for bath time, hm?”

The wolf snorted again, but it was harsher.

“Whatever you say,” Dimitri said with a sigh. He scratched the back of the wolf’s ears and watched as the creature’s eyes slowly closed and he leaned into the prince’s affectionate touch. Dimitri’s heart surged a bit and he smiled shyly. “I...I don’t mind bathing you. I used to have a dog when I was a boy and I know how to properly wash fur and everything…”

A pause.

One that made Dimitri’s fingers stop and he looked at the unresponsive back of the wolf. He wondered if he had said something offensive or crossed a personal line with Felix. The prince leaned forward, ready to offer a heartfelt apology.

Suddenly, something _shifted_.

Water slashed in Dimitri’s eyes and he lurched his head back. When the stinging sensation disappeared, he looked back only to gaze upon a naked back of pure white skin and long ink hair splayed out into the pink water. The prince froze, his breath shortening to desperate little puffs as Felix—fully human and naked—craned his head ever so slightly and glared at Dimitri from the corner of his eye.

“Wash my hair,” he commanded roughly and turned to peer off at the bathhouse door.

The corners of his ears tinged slightly pink and Dimitri could not help but chuckle softly at this sight. Without another word, he brought his hands over, fingers slipping in through midnight strands of hair like strips of shadow, and right into the spot behind his ears.

The boy jolted a bit—perhaps the sensation was different for humans, but then Dimitri began to massage Felix’s scalp in small, gentle circles, and the boy immediately melted. Felix made a small whimpering sound as his body sunk into the water, right up against Dimitri’s chest. Skin upon skin.

The prince wondered to himself if the wolf boy could hear the violent beat of his heart against the back of his head and stayed quiet as he continued to wash Felix’s scalp. Just the sounds of the water sloshing, dripping, and moving about.

They stayed like that, right up against one another with Dimitri taking his time feeling the absolute silkiness of Felix’s hair or how smooth his skin was when he began to wash his back and shoulders.

By the time they were done and Felix had transformed back into a wolf, the winter sun was high above the sky, lighting the entire forests and mountains around in a gentle, glowing light. The pair stared out the window, out towards where the horizon met with the gray sky.

The wolf riveted his gaze over to Dimitri. Somehow, Felix did not seem as intense or glaring as he usually was. More content and sleepy than anything else. Dimitri merely smiled; he got down on one knee and scratched the spot behind Felix’s ears—red eyes fluttering to a close and a soft whimper.

 _I love you,_ the prince wanted to say. But instead, he leaned in close and asked with a whisper: “Can I hunt with you today? I promise I won’t go too far.”

Felix replied with a low snort. How would one interpret such a noise?

____________________

There was news on King Lambert, which made the poor prince choke on his dinner one evening when Felix returned in his human form.

Rumors were true: the King and his men were preparing an assault at an insurgence base under the presumption that Dimitri was taken. The prince shot up and his chair fell back, clattering to the floor.

“Felix, I need to find my father! I need to let him know that I’m safe and well,” Dimitri declared, white-faced and already close to hyperventilating. His eyes were bouncing to different corners of the room and he felt a hot spell coming on.

The wolf boy came over and steadied him with a tight grip on both sides of his arms. Felix’s gaze was sharpened and strong, but there was a clear watery concern beneath the fire—something soft and comforting. He brought Dimitri closer despite their height difference and looked up at him, his mouth twisted down in a fierce frown.

“You will do no such thing. Do you understand that the rebel mages here in Fraldarius are incredibly dangerous? That a boy such as yourself as no chance fighting them no less reaching their operations. You are safer here while your father deals with them. He’s gathered soldiers from the region and they are preparing of uprooting the rebels for good.”

“And once he finds out that I’m not there?”

“Well, at least he’ll know that you were stolen away and experimented on, hm? I’m still searching but once I find him—probably after all that murder business, then I will take him to you. He gets to kill two birds with one stone: the death of the largest terrorist organization against the kingdom and his beloved son back.”

Dimitri shook his head desperately. “What am I supposed to do, Felix?! Just stay here and wait it out? What if my father dies?”

“What use will you be out there?!” Felix asked harshly, his fingers digging into the prince’s soft skin. He forced Dimitri’s face closer to his, hot breath wafting in between them, and he snarled with reddened teeth. “Can you be smart for one goddamn minute? There are rebels actively hunting for you as we speak. Your father and the lords of this region are set to attack their base soon. The safest place for you to be is _here_! If you go off, you’ll make my efforts in vain!”

“I...I…” Dimitri hung his head. The boy swayed a bit and he felt himself falling against Felix, who slipped his arms beneath his, and embraced him in a rather cold hug. The wolf boy’s hands rubbed small circles along the curve of Dimitri’s spine and he was whispering something soft into his ears, but Dimitri could not hear him.

It was like he was underwater, drowning very slowly as people were screaming at him from above the surface. All sounds were muffled, echoing, and merely white noise. Dimitri’s head was on fire and the world around him fell to its side, slipping into a deep, deep darkness.

And there came the name.

____________________

For the next few days, Dimitri’s entire body burned red hot.

He found himself shaking terribly beneath the thick covers of his bed, and his vision was cloudy with lights and colors passing through his gaze in strange blurbs. Time passed over his bedroom like streams of a dream, where memory upon memory connected together in a seamless string without much distinction between day or night.

And the only thing he could even remember was the ever-present sound of Felix’s deep voice. A command. A praise. A plea. But the words never broke through the veil though Dimitri yearned to just hear the boy’s tone.

By the time he was able to breach the surface and came out the other end, it was nightfall. Dimitri’s breathing finally slowed for the first time in days and he no longer felt so hot. Cold if anything else. But what was unmistakably clear was that his side was strangely absent of a usually warm body; Dimitri peered off to the side to an empty bed.

Felix was gone.

Dimitri blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust once again to the darkness. Finally, he slowly got up and made his way out of the room, with just the fleece of the blanket keeping his body warm. The mansion creaked from above him and from beyond, he heard a whimper. Just a sound. But enough for the prince to take off in a silent hurry.

____________________

The upstairs area of the mansion was more than a dusty, untouched skeleton.

Unlike the rest of the rooms, which were of some use, the bedroom upstairs was absolutely trashed and destroyed. The first thing Dimitri stepped on was a torn tapestry, its image lost from both age and abuse. Then a broken sword. More broken swords. A smashed table.

And then what the boy could only describe as the typical aftermath of a mob bar fight in a tavern in downtown Fhirdiad: the master bedroom was torn apart from the broken rooftops to the long, deep scratches on walls and floor. Every single piece of furniture was smashed in half with wood splinters pointing in different directions.

Dimitri was speechless for what he had uncovered. Felix must have known the upper side of the mansion was in such bad shape to forbid Dimitri from going up, but the prince was so taken by everything that he wondered if there had been a vicious fight in the early years of the mansion’s occupation. This was merely evidence of a chaos so unconstrained and brutal, and all the boy could do is stand there and peer out into that darkness.

In the corner of his eye, there was a faint gleam. Not strong enough to purge any of the shadows that veiled the master bedroom but enough for Dimitri to crane his head over in curiosity. Something was hidden around the corner where the balcony was and when the prince went over to take a look, that was when he saw it:

A jagged shield on a pedestal. Or rather, what was once a shield. It was rusted over black from the bottom to the top with just the very thin edges glowing gold—what it was once. But the greatest oddity that mystified him was one thing: the rust, it was growing. Somehow, it was spreading extremely slowly over the golden sheen of the shield.

Like cancer.

However, the parts of the shield still radiated brilliantly and Dimitri walked over to it in a strange trance. He held out his hand—hesitant, slow—and his fingers just nearly touching the facade.

Then there was a snort.

And Dimitri stopped and looked to the side. There, sitting in the darkness, was a cloud of shadow glaring at him. Two burning suns, swirling and twirling with fire. Finally, it slipped out from the veil and morphed right before him, from a wolfish creature to a pale man. He stood fully in the moonlight, shadows hanging loosely down his shoulders, and glared sharply at Dimitri with his hands clenched tightly into fists.

Silence.

“I told you not to come up here,” Felix uttered; his voice was cold and distant—a stranger.

And it sent an electrifying shiver down Dimitri’s spine; the prince swallowed down his fear and stepped forward with his arms loose to his side.

“I was...looking for you and I heard something upstairs.” He gestured to the shield. “What is wrong with the shield? It’s kind of glowing with the exception of all the rust.”

“None of your damn business. Leave.”

“Felix, what’s wrong? I swear, I didn't mean to betray you but I was worried. You weren’t there when I woke up.”

“Well, you see that I’m perfectly fine. Now get out,” Felix snapped but his words came out in a weak choke, and he threw his look down to the broken floor. There was a moment of conflicting grief, one that showed so clearly on his furious face, and it passed over in a flash. However, Dimitri was quick to catch it and he immediately stalked over without any hesitation.

He must have scared Felix with his sudden movements for the boy winced when the prince grappled his shoulders and pulled him extremely close: their eyes met momentarily before Felix dropped his wet gaze to the floor and made a soundless noise.

He was close to crying.

“Felix, tell me what’s wrong,” Dimitri ushered kindly and leaned in a bit.

Felix lurched his head away, eyes shut. “No. Fuck you. Go back to bed,” he hissed out and clenched his hands tightly until his skin turned purple and blue. The air between them turned hot and smoldering but Dimitri urged on stubbornly.

“Look at you—you’re nearly in tears. Please, tell me! It hurts me to see you in pain!”

“Like you fucking care, Dimitri! You’ll be gone here in no time so why should I fucking tell you anything?!”

“Felix...you have done nothing but shown me kindness. I don’t want to sit around when I know something is eating you up.” Dimitri stayed very still and kept his gaze on the boy who was on the verge of breaking down and snapping. “Truly, what in the world is bringing you so much pain? Felix, I would do anything to make you happy so please, tell---”

Dimitri never got a chance to finish his sentence. His words never left his lips for they were forced back down his throat when a sudden, invading pair of lips collided with his. Cold, hungry lips with an eagerness that took his breath away. 

Dimitri stumbled back with a gasp as Felix pressed in further, stepping forward and even grasping with a possessive vice on both sides of Dimitri’s arms. His tongue slipped in between Dimitri’s mouth as a pair of fangs pricked his bottom lip. He tasted something painfully wet and metallic, but gave a short moan nonetheless.

Finally, Felix shoved him away; his face was completely devastated with his black hair stuck to the glistening sweat of his skin, and his cheeks burned so red and vibrant that it almost seemed like he was ready to explode at any second. The boy breathed out haggardly, choking even, and then he shook his head in broken disbelief.

“No...no, no, no, _no_!” Felix muttered, manic and disorientated.

When Dimitri reached over to touch him, the boy slapped his hand away and dashed out of the room. The prince blinked at the empty space where Felix once stood, spun around, and went after him in a fury.

“Felix, wait!” He choked out, stumbling over the pile of broken swords and chairs as he went after the boy. While Dimitri dove down the stairs in pursuit of the retreating figure, not once did he notice that the rust on the shield had stopped growing.

But just for a moment.

____________________

Dimitri did not know how long he had been running. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Twenty?

All he knew was that he was able to catch a close fleeting glimpse of Felix’s backside and the long streams of his hair through the trees. And almost, upon instinct, the prince silently sped up right over the tree roots, and tackled the slender body of his prey. A short cry before the fall over the small cliffside. The boys tumbled down through the thicket and into a small, isolated puddle where they hit the water and mud with a loud splash. The birds screeched from above and took off in a great, black fury.

Then the stillness. Dimitri heard a pained groan near him and immediately threw his head over to Felix, who sat in the water with a furious, disgusted look. He swiped the mud and leaves from his arms and squeezed the ends of his hair dry. A deep growl emitted from the base of his throat and he shot a fiery glare right at the drenched prince.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you soft in the head?!” He hissed out with a bite.

Dimitri coughed up water and bits of leaves he swallowed up. The prince shook his head and moved closer to Felix, desperate and yearning. “Felix, why did you run? Why did you run from me?”

“You have to be fucking kidding me. You chased me out of the fucking mansion because I was running.”

“Of course I did! How could I leave you alone in your grief?”

“Fuck off, Dimitri. Just fuck right back to the mansion and leave me the fuck alone!” he snarled, even leaning forward with his eyes burning and hands up in a threatening, choking gesture. The wolf side in Felix flared up so animatedly that one could pinpoint the clear line between beast and man; for Felix, this line was deeply blurred.

Dimitri shook his head. “ _No_. Not until you tell me what’s been troubling you,” he said, echoing his father’s strong voice of resound. His brows furrowed deeply and the prince’s entire body stiffened visibly as if to silently suggest his stubbornness.

Felix’s breath went up sharply and he expelled the air out through his gritted sharp teeth. The boy’s fists tightened white—whiter than his own skin, and his lips were moving in a short, inaudible speech. Something manic. Absolutely terrified. And so bitterly restrained.

Dimitri could only watch, the crying pain flooding his heart, and all he wanted to do was to crawl over and hold Felix, who began to shake in the water. He simply wanted to throw his arms over him and embrace him until the winter sun came and greeted them once more. Instead, Dimitri played with patience and waited quietly, staring unwavering at Felix in deep worship.

The only sounds in the small moonlit grotto they found themselves in were the gentle rustling of the leaves all around and the water spilling out between the rocks and into the larger stream through the foliage. And breathing. Two breaths conjoined: one panicked and heightening. The other slow and gradual.

Finally, the dark-haired boy closed his eyes and gave a long, shuddering sigh.

“You,” Felix stated. “You’re my problem. Ever since that shitty, fucking day I laid my eyes on you in the thicket.”

Dimitri did not know what to say; he knew better than to speak and merely allowed the boy to continue speaking in his madness.

“You...you never left my mind. Even when I tried to return to normal life, you invaded it so terribly that I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even hunt. All I saw was your stupid, stupid face. Your golden hair. Your blue eyes. Your voice...Fucking everything! And then I brought you here after the attack. And you began to _touch_ me. _Cuddle_ me. _Rain_ praises on me. I just...I just could not fucking take it anymore. I can’t, Dimitri, I really can’t,” he finally choked out weakly and peered up at the prince, extremely weary and broken.

“Is that why you kissed me?” Dimitri asked in a hushed tone.

Felix did not respond. He did not have to.

The prince reached out and brushed a few strands of wet black hair from the boy’s broken face. The movement alone prompted Felix to raise his eyes up, looking directly at Dimitri; his gaze was glowing embers in the darkness and so leveled, that he almost seemed like he were peering straight past the prince.

And for a moment, Dimitri believed that Felix was furious with him again, disgusted with his mere presence. Even with these thoughts, it did not stop Dimitri from shifting forward and pressing his body into Felix’s. He drew his arms around the boy’s cold back and hugged him tightly against his breast, listening to slight hitches in breathing.

They stayed like that for a minute before Dimitri braved himself in a quiet confession.

“I really liked it. You know. The kiss.”

“Did you now?” uttered the deep, shaky voice vibrating against his chest.

“Yes. And I appreciated everything you have done for me so far. Not just here at the mansion but while my father and I were traveling.”

“So you knew.”

“I can put two and two together.”

Felix shook his head. “You’re fucking sick,” he muttered.

“If I’m so sick, why are you still here, Felix?” Dimitri pulled back until he could properly look at Felix and all the visible, wet madness on his face. Every hot emotion was boiling and bubbling over, so ready to burst.

And the prince had the prick to poke that expanding balloon.

He smiled softly—cruelly—aware of his own power over the beautiful creature hyperventilating in front of him. “What do you want, my beloved? Tell me and I will grant it. In fact, _take it_. I will never deny your pleasure.” He leaned in close until their lips nearly touched. “Never.”

Felix’s eyes went black. The boy went forward with an animalistic snarl as he caught Dimitri by the waist and dragged him down into the shallow water with a light splash. He viciously tore at the prince’s clothes until the chilly air touched his pale chest.

Felix’s hands sprawled out on the skin and he bent forward, licking the side of Dimitri’s exposed neck as his other hand searched desperately for somewhere down below. The prince gasped wetly, grasping the back of the boy’s neck, and tapped his thigh rapidly.

Felix stopped and pulled back.

“D-Do you know what you’re doing?” Dimitri asked with a shiver.

The dark-haired boy panted wildly, eyes flaring bright and burning with lust. “Fuck no. I’m acting on instinct. You?”

“I think this would be my first time…”

“Oh shit. Seriously?”

Dimitri nodded off, disorientated. “Y-Yeah. I don’t know what we should be doing...but all I know is that I want to kiss and hold you.”

“I want to do that and _more_. Lay back and let me rut you, your ‘highness’,” Felix growled fiercely and pushed Dimitri back into the water, strong arms gripping his arms tightly in claim. He leaned forward and added a hot voice into his ear. “Besides, we don’t have that much time. And I’m going to make every goddamn second count. Do you understand me?”

“Y-Yes!”

Felix immediately fell back into Dimitri with a growl. He breathed in the prince’s scent, slid his hands over his shivering chest—fingers twisting a nipple roughly, earning a faint cry from the boy wiggling beneath him. A heat of pleasure passed down from his head down to the very pit of his stomach, and Dimitri felt his toes curl up as Felix began to lick the nape of his neck and bite into the soft flesh with a possessive claim.

He pulled back momentarily, and they stared at one another; Felix pushed up against him—grinding shamelessly, as if trying to test his strength against the prince. Dimitri merely laughed out at the wolf boy’s fierceness, adoring his open lust, and slid his own hand over his supple backside.

Soon, Felix’s wandering hand found Dimitri’s excited length, already dripping wet. The prince’s blue eyes shot up and he whined, suppressing the sound by biting into his wrist; Felix grinned cruel and malevolent at the sight of the boy practically shaking from the touch. He began to viciously stroke and the pleasure swirling at the pit of Dimitri’s stomach turned _inward._

“F-Felix!” The prince whined, his eyes watering.

“Please don’t tell me you _never_ done this before,” the wolf panted, continuing to pump the boy quickly. His other hand fell over his own aroused cock, which sprang from his pants, glistening with precum. Felix grind their lengths together and stroked with a hollow, mad laugh.

Dimitri groaned and threw his head back, tears already forming at the corner of his eyes. “N-No...I don’t know what this is,” he confessed truthfully.

“How do you feel?”

“I...I…”

“Say it, Dimitri. Tell me how you feel,” Felix grunted darkly. He jerked his hips upward sharply and the prince groaned. “Tell me!”

“Really good! Really fucking good!” Dimitri cried out.

Suddenly, the stroking began sloppy and disorientated. The heat between them flared up harshly with open mouth gasps filling the air. Someone laughed—was it Felix? Dimitri closed his eyes as hot tears trailed down his flushed cheeks; the cock wept against Felix’s cock and his steady fingers, taking in the deep slippery feel of it.

“I’m going,” he panted. “Felix—please—”

“I’m close too...” Felix grinned with sharp fangs.

Then the boy leaned down and captured Dimitri’s gasping mouth in a tight, aching kiss. He pressed hard against him, tongue dancing around each other, and then he pulled back to stare down at Dimitri. He must have been a terrible sight: a feverish face completely soaked with tears. All around his neck were dark, bloody marks, and even his chest was bruised terribly with his nipples, red and swollen. And Felix kept gazing at him, his strokes becoming more irrational and loose.

And then it snapped white.

Felix and Dimitri reached a violent climax at once, crying out as ribbons of hot of cum painted their chest and face. The latter, especially, was coated white as he shuddered beneath Felix’s body, blue eyes shot out and glistening wet. He made a soundless noise, stared up at the icy canopy, and then physically went limp in the pond. The water around them clouded white and rippled as the Felix joined him in the water.

The boys laid right next to each, breathing slowly—shoulder-to-shoulder. Silence encased all around them so naturally that the only sounds were the very tinkling of water through the rocks and Felix’s occasional laugh. Dimitri, who was so mind shot that he could barely formulate words, threw an arm over Felix’s body and held him closer. Only problem was that his wet hand touched fur and his weary eyes had laid upon the sight of a black wolf, peering back at him softly.

Dimitri gave a weak, rattling laugh, and buried himself in the soft belly of the wolf. They laid into one another for a good minute before they both rose weakly on their shaky legs and returned home for dinner.

____________________

The rusting shield was still of great mystery to Dimitri. As it turned out, it belonged to Felix back when he was simply human and not this duality between beast and man. However, when he was cursed, the shield became the catalyst for the hex. It once sheen gold and radiant back in the old days, but now a black rust had taken it over, growing larger and larger with the passing of years.

“Once it’s completely rusted over, I can never turn human again. That’s it—I’m a wolf,” Felix explained morosely.

His white fingers clasped over Dimitri’s as they laid side-by-side in bed with the moon high upon a starless night. An owl hooted from the forest nearby and the prince kissed the back of his hand, blue eyes fluttering softly.

“How can we stop the process? Surely the witch that cursed you must have had told you why.”

“She did.” Felix lulled his head beneath Dimitri’s chin; he closed his eyes and took in the boy’s smell. “It was all very vague. Even now, I’m rather stumped by it all.”

“Tell me. What did she say?”

Felix hummed, trying to recollect a pained memory from years off. Not as raw and terribly dull. “That ‘the way of beasts is blind hunger and destruction and for that, you, too, shall join your kin; the nature of men is a dual-faced god, both wrath and benevolence. Both hatred and love. Both harm and protection. Learn to balance these elements within you and reach beyond your bestiality with a mutual act of devotion. And then you shall return to realm of man.’”

“Wow.” Dimitri blinked at the ceiling. “That is...incredibly cryptic.”

“I know.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“That’s what I said to her! But, it came out with more bark than actual words,” Felix admitted sheepishly. He curled up against the prince’s chest, placing his ear right at where his heart beat very excitedly with a rhythm Dimitri saw was comforting him by the second.

“Felix.”

“Hm?”

“Why were you cursed in the first place?” Dimitri braved himself in the inquiry. When the dark-haired boy physically stiffened in his embrace, even going whiter than his usual complexion, Dimitri immediately regretted his boldness.

“Sorry! You don’t have to answer that if---”

“You’ll hate me if I tell you,” Felix muttered hoarsely. He swallowed audibly and his hand was shaking in Dimitri’s gentle grip.

“No, I won’t. I promise.”

“I can’t, Dimitri.”

“I will never hate you.”

“Why does it matter?” The dark-haired boy groaned and rubbed circles in his temple. “You’re leaving me anyway once your father wipes out the rebels. You’ll be gone and I’ll be here, all alone again. A beast in an empty house.”

Dimitri shifted over on his side until he faced Felix. He gazed upon the boy, eyes tracing over how his long black hair splayed out against the pillow and all the down the sheets at his slender hips. Or the white sharpness of his beauty, right where the smoldering glare of his sunset pupils shot out like a passing arrow of fire.

“Who says I’m leaving you?” he whispered, reaching out, brushing a strand of ink hair from the boy’s face. His red eyes had an underlying shine to them—wet, like a dewdrop. Felix’s chest rose ever so slowly and he let out a lone breath through his mouth. Then he looked away.

“You can’t stay here, Dimitri. You’re the crown prince of Faerghus. They will never let the next king live in an abandoned mansion in the middle of fuck-nowhere.”

“Oh, I know. But I’m not leaving you.”

Felix blinked slowly, uncomprehending like that of an intrigued dog. “What...are you saying?” He asked in a hush.

Dimitri smiled; he took the boy’s eerily cold hands into his and kissed each individual digit until his lips grazed against the wrist, right above a heightening, crazed pulse. A moment, where neither party could speak, except for the language of touch and breaths. And then, the prince raised his head until their gazes met once again, his hand still clasped over Felix’s as a gesture of his faith.

“Felix, I will find a way to break your curse. Even if I lose a limb for it. And once I do, I will bring you back with me to Fhirdiad and make you my queen.”

Someone choked.

“Uh...unless you prefer to stay independent. Then I’ll court you from afar and visit you every weekend to express my deep, deep love.”

“What if I move to Derdriu?”

“Then I’ll visit Derdriu.”

“You’ll be the king of fucking Faerghus. You cannot just waltz past the border of the Alliance just to see me.”

“I’ll befriend the Alliance and form a treaty with them. Then I’ll meet you in Derdriu.”

Felix swallowed and looked down at their entwined hands. Something wet shone under his eyes and it rolled down his cheeks. “You...are telling me, that you are willing to undergo extreme political negotiations just to fucking meet me at the Alliance capital.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t...you can’t give me false hope like this. Not after what I have done in my life.” He sniffed and brought his entire arm over his face. It almost seemed like he was grieving—in deep and bitter mourning. However, the boy shifted back and Dimitri caught a glimpse of a feverish smile behind a starkly reserved expression.

However, his attention riveted elsewhere for a second and the dark thoughts returned.

Dimitri stared at him, watching how an array of emotions flooded his usually straight face, how both pain and hesitance came together in unity. He was prone to these thoughts as of late, unable to voice them despite the time the boys had spent together. Learning from each other. In places that would make a maiden blush.

Finally, Dimitri gently clasped his fingers over Felix’s face and forced it towards him, earning a small whine escaping from the boy’s throat. The prince was not usually this aggressive but he began to dislike Felix’s outright secrecy. They watched each other in silence before Felix spoke.

“...Back in the day, I used to...wander the land.”

“Wander the land?”

“I was a rogue. A vagabond. I...killed to survive after my family died. Well, that’s what I kept telling myself. It was survival at first since I was young and all I knew what to do was to hold a sword and eat. Not much in the way of a proper trade there. But…” Felix licked his lips and shuddered darkly. “I started _enjoying_ it. Killing, you know? I guess it really started when I had to keep defending myself against all manners of bandits and beasts alike until defense turned into a twisted sport. A game in which the only competition was myself and how many bodies I can stack up for the day. Eventually, those bodies began to include...innocents and that was when I met my fate with that green-haired witch.”

“It’s you.” Dimitri sat up on his elbows and looked down at Felix, emotionless. “You’re the famed killer my father told me about. The one that used to haunt this province.”

“So you heard of me. Well then, you must be disgusted,” Felix muttered weakly.

The prince shook his head. “We all must atone one day, my beloved. And your redemption was all the years you spent, cursed and suffering. I saw you, Felix. I know you. You’re not the killer that once terrorized mankind. You deserve to be free. I...We will break your curse together.”

“You’re still on about that?”

“Yes. My father and his soldiers can deal with the rebels. While they’re off doing that, I will stay here and find the key to your shackles.”

Felix reached over and patted Dimitri’s cheek rather playfully, almost to dismiss him. Almost. “Alright then. You can go ahead and try. But just note that I’ve been trying for years and I’m still baffled by it all.”

The white prince kissed the wolf’s beckoning lips in a silent promise. When he pulled away, there was a chuckle emitting from his lips and a sleepy sigh. “Have some optimism, will you? I mean, did you know that the rusting on the shield did stop as of recently? You must be doing something right.”

“Speak for yourself.”

____________________

Truth to be told, Dimitri was not exactly sure where to begin with Felix’s curse.

The first thinker was the witch’s words itself. Something regarding Felix needing to break free from his bestial side and embrace the duality of man. Or rather the balance of elements. And most importantly, find a mutual act of devotion.

It was still all incredibly vague and cryptic, even to Dimitri who had to read up on different literature and prose from his royal tutors. Here, the confusion was in the witch’s ideal intent for Felix: she wanted to teach him a lesson. But how was he supposed to reach it?

No less, learn what exactly is said. To not kill so viciously? If that were the case, the witch had better luck sending the boy to a monastery than transforming him into a killer beast. So where was the connection?

A murderous man is akin to a wild beast. As such, the beast needed to relearn humanity in order to be human. And yet, Dimitri’s mind returned to part of a mutual act of devotion, and he struck a wall again. Mutual meant two, not one. Felix could not break this curse alone. He needed someone. But what else could go beyond even that? Dimitri was here, had been here for weeks, almost a month. And yet, the curse was not broken.

The prince buried his face in his hands and decided to take a break for the day. He will return back to this topic in due time. Though time was not something they had left, not with more rumors of the rebel forces being pushed back and King Lambert leading the charge. Not with the shield rusting. But at the very least, the rust had stopped and pulled back a bit.

Dimitri wondered what they were doing to cause such a reaction.

____________________

For the next few days, Dimitri continued to ponder as life returned to the mansion. However, there was a certain shift in routine and temperament, which truly distinguished the difference between the prince’s first few weeks living with Felix and now.

And that shift was Felix himself. He had begun to intentionally time his transformations at the oddest hours, without Dimitri least expecting it. Sometimes, when the prince was taking in his usual baths, Felix slipped in—stark naked and grinning ear-to-ear like he won a prize.

And those nights became long hourly embraces in a water with the remnants of their ‘back-washing’ plain on the walls and even drainage afterwards. Dimitri nearly came to drowning a few times when Felix’s motions became too much for him, and only the boy’s attentive grip at his hip—the ‘handles of nature’ Felix once teased in his more lucid moments—held him up. Their most favored activity, which always felt the poor prince as weak as a newly born fawn, was a direct show of Felix’s domination.

He’d lift Dimitri to sit on the edge of the bathhouse, legs apart with just his cock out and exposed. The prince always felt so shameful in the display and even tried to hide his clear erection a few times, only for Felix to slap the boy’s hand away. He then stared at the length, eyes drawn together darkly as though it were a piece of meat, ready to devouring—and then he took the cock deep into his eager mouth.

Dimitri immediately cried at the wet hot sensation of Felix’s mouth, how he sucked and licked with vigor. Even forcing the cock down his tight throat and stared at Dimitri with those terribly cruel eyes. He kept forcing his face forward, taking in as much as the prince’s twitching shaft as possible; he pulled back, his lips popping at the tip, and gave it an excited lick before diving back in. When Felix’s head began to bob violently with a hazy gaze, a long shudder when through Dimitri’s body.

“Fel...Felix...I can’t...I think I’m going to cum—please don’t swallow, please—ahh!”

Dimitri exploded in Felix’s mouth, hot delight filling the boy’s throat. Felix hummed and drank down all of the bitterly salty sweet liquid that spilled into him as though Dimitri’s spent was the sacred water and he, its dehydrated traveler. Once he lapped it all up with a great swallow, he pulled back from Dimitri’s weeping cock and licked his lips with a shameless smile.

Or perhaps it was the fact that Dimitri unconsciously always slipped back into the water with a soundless sigh and right into Felix’s waiting arms. Bath time was never again, solitary, though neither of the boys could complain.

The more _terrifying_ moments were whenever Dimitri was in bed.

Alone.

These days, Felix returned late from a long hunt and the prince did not have the power to stay up. He merely went to bed and woke up with the wolf usually balled up against his chest.

He laid down on his back and closed his eyes. His sheets were always clean as a habit of his royal upbringing, and he merely spread his limbs out, shirt out open and exposing the pale skin of his chest. It was always cold in his bedroom as the windows were built shamelessly wide and long on the walls facing the forest.

Dimitri would lay there, half-asleep, half-dreaming, unaware of the three clicks that echoed in his room. The door knob creaked with a rusted halt; a swing of the open door with an elongated whine; the gentle shut followed by the lock switching into itself with a snap; and the slow footsteps up to the end of the bed. A shadow blanketed the boy’s half-naked form, eating up the sight so hungrily—a meal in the finest presentation and ready to be consumed.

Here, Dimitri stirred ever so slightly. He unconsciously awaited for the bed to shift with a sudden weight of a nighttime invader. For the hot breath to brush up against his exposed neck. For the cold hand to slither over his chest in claim. And for the sharp fangs of the beast to claim the sleeping beauty.

“Dimitri.”

Dimitri slowly opened his eyes and met with the gaze of a lurking beast.

Felix, fully human with strands of his dark hair falling down to the prince in a midnight curtain, smiled with his sharp teeth showing. His eyes were so terrifying in their intensity, freckled with twitching flames, and clouded with such throbbing lust that it bordered on pure, absolute pain. Dimitri’s stomach turned at the sight, his cock erect and excited.

The prince allowed his head to fall to the side, offering the beast the smooth visage of his wonderfully slender neck. Felix’s teeth grazed Dimitri’s collarbone and his tongue lapped at the salty taste at the skin near his shoulder. A small ecstatic whimper escaped from Dimitri’s throat, especially when he smelled the keen oppression of goose oil.

When he opened his teary eyes, he saw that Felix stood over his form with his fingers slathered in grease they used for lanterns. The boy tossed the small canister to the side, where it bounced under the nightstand, and spread the oil across his palm.

Their love language was through the exchange of looks and the intensity of movements; Dimitri nodded very slowly and Felix forced his pants open, his erect cock sprang out, already twitching excitedly. He kept his red gaze on Dimitri, even licking his lips in a show of hunger as he coated his length evenly on the grease.

The prince already spread his white legs out in submission and Felix knelt in between them; he ripped off Dimitri’s breeches (they always needed to sew them back together afterward) and slipped two fingers into the prince in a thrusting motion. A short cry, followed by unbelievable noises from the prince: gasps, sobs, small shameless pleads with words that even made Felix pause, red-faced. Dimitri’s erection pressed against Felix’s stomach, shouting for attention.

“Felix...take me...please! Just take me!” Dimitri begged weakly, clambering his sweaty hands all over the boy’s heaving chest. Felix’s fingers continued to push upward quickly, feeling how the prince’s walls squeezed around him tightly. He brushed up a certain spot and Dimitri gasped loudly, eyes white and shaking.

 _There it was_. Felix smirked and pulled out, the slickness spilling out from the eager pink flesh like a web. Without another word, the dark-haired boy lifted Dimitri’s shivering thigh over shoulder, guided his cock right against the entrance, and pushed himself all the way in.

A tortured cry. Dimitri threw his head back and sobbed with a half laugh as he felt a twitching fullness spread him open. His pretty pink guts tightened around Felix’s cock and the dark-haired boy snapped his hips roughly, earning himself another gasp from Dimitri, who went still beneath him.

Even in the beginning when Felix first took Dimitri’s maidenhood away, it was all rough and animalistic, revealing the side of the beast in the pale-faced beauty. He grinned with the corners of his mouth showing off the sharp white of his long fangs, and he began to violently fuck Dimitri.

Pleasure was a wave and it came in like an oceanic storm; the only sounds in the room was the wet skin slapping upon skin with Felix’s balls hitting the base of Dimitri’s ass, the short grunts from the wolf and the heightening gasps from the white prince, and the springs of the bed creaking loudly with every rough thrust.

“You’re so tight, Dimitri. Fuck,” Felix snarled; he pulled himself out just a bit before slamming back in, right up against the prince’s weeping prostate.

“Faster, Felix, faster!” Dimitri begged and shook his head as tears trailed down his red cheeks.

“As you command, your ‘highness’.”

Felix seized Dimitri’s slender hips, his fingers digging so deeply into the skin that it was sure to leave marks, and began to thrust desperately into the prince’s tight guts. All Dimitri could feel is the rough stab into his prostate as hot pleasure boiled and boiled at the pit of his stomach. His cock wept with the anticipation of release and his vision flashed white and red until Felix’s face came into view.

A face of a stranger he could not recognize: a mad grin frozen on his face as his black hair stuck to his sweaty skin and fell over them in a night veil; he was bearing his teeth again and with every thrust came a dark growl along with the swirling glow of his eyes, so centered on Dimitri’s ruined boy that the prince could not help but feel consumed.

Finally, with one push on his shaky elbows, Dimitri lifted himself up and pressed his wet lips against Felix’s. The dark-haired boy was not expecting it and froze a bit at the show of intimacy. However, he quickly melted into something akin to a human lover and pressed his hand at the back of Dimitri’s sweaty back as he reciprocated the kiss deeply. He adjusted Dimitri onto his lap and snapped his hips upward as their tongues danced desperately around each other.

“F-Felix…”

Pleasure turned white. Impatient. It was close.

“Y-Yeah?”

Dimitri stared into his eyes—blue to red, and he gasped openly in their kiss.

“I-I love you!”

The suns exploded. Felix threw his head back and snarled as he completely bottomed himself into Dimitri’s insides, coating the tight guts white with his possessive claim. The two bodies shuddered and went still against each other as though they were statues of lovers, forever in their embrace.

Dimitri was the first to let go and he went completely limp in Felix’s arms; he fell against the cold body and was brought back down against the bed, against the soft warm sheets and the loving pair of hands that held him. Felix’s hot spent leaked out of his red gaping hole and onto the blanket in a small puddle, but Dimitri was so far gone and mind shot that he barely noticed how empty his body felt or even Felix’s affectionate nibbles around his neck and ears.

The boys laid into one another, just small soft touches with their fingers latching around each other in a mutual loving gesture. Dimitri was muttering, words incomprehensible to both himself and Felix who liked to lull his head against the latter’s chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart.

Nights usually ended in Dimitri’s mental ruin and the sweet aftermath of pleasure clearly stained in their sheets and leaked out of him in a slow stream. Felix kept making a low noise in his throat—it was happiness. Content. Peace.

And then, before the hour ended, Felix reached over and cupped the side of Dimitri’s pale face, gently turning the boy over to look at him. He knew the prince was not listening, not really there in the present. But he spoke nonetheless and ended things with a small kiss before his body went over to the beast’s side.

“I love you too, Dimitri.”

____________________

More news came from Fraldarius.

King Lambert and his men had successfully destroyed the rebel base, eradicating most of the terrorists with the exception of their female leader, who they took hostage. It was unknown what the royal party did afterwards, only that it was great secrecy and that by the time they emerged from the period of silence, the leader was dead and the king was on another grand search.

Felix and Dimitri both knew what it was about.

“He must have interrogated that witch, the one who tried to kidnap you that day of the attack. Now he’s looking for you,” Felix stated matter-of-fact. They were upstairs on the open balcony, sitting against one another and staring out at the snowy horizon. Behind him, the shield glowed gold with the rust stopping right along the edges, immobilized.

Dimitri nodded. “Yes, which meant that she must have told him that I got away.”

“Indeed. Which is cue for me to go find the good king. He must be worried sick out of his mind for you.”

“I miss him too. But Felix, the rust still hasn’t gone down.”

“It did stop though. And that’s confusing me the most.” Felix shook his head morosely and stood up. The northern wind passing through his long, black locks, wavering over his slender back like a silk curtain. He seemed...resigned in Dimitri’s eyes and it pained his heart terribly. “That doesn’t matter anymore, Dimitri. This is not about me—It was never about me. I just wanted to keep you safe and away from the hands of people who wanted to hurt you. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to make you happy. Now that the threat is over, all that is left to do is return you to the safe hands of your father.”

“Felix, I’m not leaving until I break your curse,” Dimitri said and shook his head.

“How’s this: we’ll get daddy dearest here and then you can talk to him about that. But Dimitri, it would be irresponsible to keep you here any further when the rebels are gone and your kingdom is looking for you,” Felix replied back in a small, human voice.

“I’ll bring you back with me. We will talk to the court mages. We will have an audience with Faerghus’ greatest experts on the topic of curses. I promise, we will find a way to free you, Felix.”

Felix smiled. But it was a sad, bitter smile without any of his usual bite. The smile of a dying man. He leaned down towards the sitting boy and kissed the top of Dimitri’s head.

“Keep dreaming, my naïve prince. Stay here in the tower until my return. Then I shall rescue you and return you to your castle, okay?”

Dimitri had not the words to speak. His mind wandered elsewhere and slow, slow breathtaking epiphany came to him as Felix slipped by and out the broken master bedroom. An epiphany that gradually came into fruition and in full bloom when Dimitri stood in front of the shield and stared at his blue eye reflected at the small golden spot of its visage. The rusting, indeed, had stopped for sometime, but that was not what interested him. The dark plague had...pulled back a bit as if repelled by a mysterious force, and revealed more of the golden skin hiding beneath. It was not like that before, where the rust merely stopped at the corners.

This time, there was an actual open spot where the crust once grew over in claim. Something must have happened between the time between the boys entering the room to Dimitri standing up and checking his reflection. Something must have passed in their conversation alone to repel the growth. And as Dimitri stood and peered at himself, or rather, his eye, the epiphany blossomed.

_A mutual act of devotion._

“ _I just wanted to keep you safe and away from the hands of people who wanted to hurt you. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to make you happy.”_

Dimitri clenched his hands into tight, determined fists and closed his eyes.

It was his turn now.

____________________

It was three long and tortuously lonely days without Felix that Dimitri awoke to a crash from downstairs. Of course, he was not truly asleep—simply drifting his lack of sleep due to his constant push to stay awake these last few days.

It seemed to him that everything, both dead and the living, had deserted the mansion. And Dimitri was trapped there, a prisoner of non-existence and non-time. Sharing the stark loneliness that Felix had felt for years and years without a shred of companionship. But unlike the wolf, Dimitri, who often lived among the presence of others, grew manic.

The prince would sit in bed, staring at the wide windows of his bedroom and out to the blue moon hovering above the starless sky, and then passed out from the waiting. This continued for every day Felix did not return from his journey up until the third day where Dimitri—dark rings beneath the sad blue eyes and a sickly pale face hacked with a lack of sleep—stirred from his bed and shot up.

When the sound of glass crashing sound from downstairs followed by the harsh snap of the front door, the prince summoned strength in his weak legs and bolted down the stairs. It had to been Felix, though what worried him the most was the outright chaos that was happening just below him.

Cruel dread struck his heart like an arrow and the prince found himself slowly just at the corner where the stairs curled down to the foyer and the front door. A voice rang out, but neither from a young man nor a wolf.

It was from a man—harsh and cruel, followed by the grunts of a dozen individuals, Dimitri peered his head just over the corner of the stairwell, and he looked upon a sight that left him breathless and white.

Felix, a beast with black fur and red eyes, was dragging himself across the carpet—a trail of blood followed him from smashed in the front door; his right thigh was bleeding profusely from a large gash—too large for either an arrow or a sword to cause. It was made by something bigger. Much deadlier.

The wolf was whining, turning his head around in a desperate blind search before staring in absolute panic at the figures entering through the hole where the door used to be. Harsh snow and howling wind blew in behind the armored backs of knights and warriors, and they parted like a stormy black sea as a single man stepped right in the middle of the foyer and in front of Felix.

A killer lance, as large and as sharp as a dragon’s tooth, shone in the invading moonlight from the outside and it radiated the blue-silver armor of a cruel northern kingdom; locks of pure gold and the icy blue of a piercing, spiteful gaze.

Dimitri’s heart dropped.

“Foul beast! There you are! Think you could escape from my grasp?” King Lambert hissed as he dragged the blade of his lance along the carpet, ripping up the fabric and floorboards underneath with wood chips flying out with a screech.

Felix whimpered and tried to push himself back only to collapse as more dark blood spilled out from his leg. It coated the carpet beneath, spreading out in a dark, flurried stain. He lulled his head weakly to the floor and cried out, the red of his eyes scanning the far walls of the foyer.

“Your majesty, are we so sure that the werewolf was telling the truth? Perhaps the witch was lying?” Asked one of knights as the crowd stared in a mixture of pity and anger at Felix’s limp form.

“With her dying breath, she had told us that a beast would come in the form of a man and would fool us with claims that he has safeguarded my son. Was the dying bitch not telling the truth? This _thing_ actually has Dimitri hostage and it intends to do all of us harm. No, I will end things once and for all, and rescue my boy,” declared Lambert in a cold voice. The king lifted the lance out of the floorboards with wood chips and loose twine flying over the place; he brought it over his head, the blade gleaming malevolently in the moonlight, and angled it right where Felix laid.

The wolf’s eyes fluttered softly until the red disappeared like a dying sunset right below the darkening horizon. His body sagged, resigned, and all there was left for the creature was the wait; between his executioner readying the guillotine and the inevitable drop of the blade on the trapped head below. The wind sang with the fated swing and Felix waited.

And he waited.

But the blade never reached him.

Dimitri had leaped from his hiding spot and right in between the injured beast and their family’s ancestral blade. He was not sure what he had been expecting, really. His father’s reflex control was rather poor and their family’s strength was renowned across the continent, so when Dimitri’s vision went shot red and his head rang like a broken church bell, he wondered where his logic had gone. Then again, as Felix had said, he has always been a naïve, foolish soul.

The pain was a thin wire of infinite length, vibrating like the strum of a piano’s pluck—the sound radiating across the air. It rebounded, further and further and further until Dimitri’s mind drifted off from-red haze that clouded his vision. Consciousness throbbed like an open wound upon the salty air, and he slowly slipped in between the lines, where a warm darkness cradled him momentarily.

Something hot and wet touched his cheeks along with an unfamiliar sound. Unfamiliar yet pained. One that echoed so deeply in his heart that it tore the veil away from his sight; the pain began to subside and the prince, drifting along the clouds in a weightless flutter, finally felt the hard, cold floor beneath him.

The cold hands that clasped over him. The warm sensation pooling down his right eye and down his neck. And the hot tears that decorated his face. One eye fluttered open and he looked up at the image of Felix—devastatingly human with his black hair spilling between them like ink and his sunset eyes, stormy with rain.

Those eyes exploded upon Dimitri’s return to consciousness and a relieved sob broke out weakly. Above him, Lambert and the knights stood over in absolute shock and grief. Dimitri, mustering all of his strength, brought a hand up and touched Felix’s cold, wet cheek.

“You’re...you’re human again…,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Dimitri, you fucking idiot. You fucking, fucking _stupid_ idiot.” Felix leaned into the touch and choked; tears continued to drip down his chin and onto Dimitri’s face. “Why did you do that?! You...You could have died! Why?!”

“I...I needed to show you my devotion. You...went out of your way to save and protect me...so...I must do the same. Oh Felix...the curse is broken…”

“F-Fuck the curse! Dimitri, your right eye!”

“It’s just an eye...I only need one to look upon your beauty…”

Felix forced himself to breathe several times and then resumed speaking in a soft, precise voice. He was laughing. He was crying. Dimitri could hardly tell the difference. “You are the world’s most naïve idiot.”

“I’m _your_ naïve idiot…” The prince was growing delusional from all the pain and lulled his head away with a loose, hollow giggle.

“My friend, give him here,” commanded a gentle, kind voice from above—pent with crying regret and pain.

They reluctantly separated—reluctantly as in peeling apart and coming back together like the edges of a wound that did not heal. Eventually, the wound reopened and Felix handed Dimitri off to his father, his hand still clasped over his.

The king cradled his beloved son. He, too, was crying and muttering a mad string of apologies in a gurgled man unfitting of a powerful ruler, but closer to a man at loss and a grieving father. Lambert turned to his man and quickly issued an order, but Dimitri was not sure what is was exactly. The last thing he saw through his darkening, hazy sight was Felix’s bloody hand still clutched over his, shaking but refusing to let go.

And it was that constant, warm grip that allowed the sweet prince to fall back into a weightless dream. Like a bird taking off beneath a moonlit night, set adrift and free.

____________________

Felix’s wolfish, blood eyes are the first to light the semi-darkness of the bedroom. His white, slender body—a godly image which is both foreign and welcoming—stands between the hovering father at the doorway and the boy in the bed.

He’s acting as an iron gate, closed off and unresponsive to the stranger on the other side while keeping the homeowner safe and protected. The boy knows this and he revels in acting as Dimitri’s personal aegis against his father, the oppressor. But both of them understood there was no malice between them, just an instinct.

Dimitri is already awake. He settled deeper into the familiar warmth of his royal bed back in Fhirdiad—it had been a long, long journey and throughout the whole thing, Felix had not left his side. But the boy did not say anything either and merely watched him; the smoke from the nearby candle spreads around them in a protective mist. Dimitri, with his one eye, riveted over to Felix and made a weak gesture.

“Felix.”

“Yes?”

His eyes blink. They hardly wielded any of his usual fire. In fact, they looked dull like dry lumps of coal and ash.

“How do I look?”

“Like a one-eyed bandit king.” Felix gave himself into a rare joke. He leaned over and kissed Dimitri’s cheek, smelling of northern pine and mineral salts—he recently took a bath, and this fact alone gives Dimitri some strength.

Lambert continued to stand at the door, hovering between the border of his own son’s bedroom for the last eighteen years and Felix’s den; he covered his mouth, hiding a small smile, and shook his head.

“Father, it’s okay. Please, don’t feel so terrible,” Dimitri managed to say hoarsely. “You didn’t know.”

“I was fooled so easily. I almost killed both you and your savior. I...have no right to be here.”

“You’re my dad.”

“Am I?” Lambert stiffened a short, ugly laugh before dismissing the act entirely for a dark, sullen look. The king threw his eyes to the side, down the floor and away from both Dimitri and Felix. The air around them turned thick, thicker than the smoke and the deep breaths the prince was taking. Finally a voice pulled through and it was not one from the wounded boy in the bed.

“Your majesty...you were...in a panic. Any parent would be after their child goes missing. I mean, you practically destroyed Fraldarius’ entire terrorist organization under the belief they had your son. You love him very much,” Felix said incredibly carefully without any bite in his voice.

Lambert’s eyes lit, but only momentarily. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“I’m not forgiving you,” the wolf corrected bluntly. His head dropped but reddened a bit when Dimitri’s shaky hand clasped over his resting wrist. “In fact, those three days of having to escape from the father of the boy I love like some kind of twisted nobleman’s hunt still gives me nightmares. But...I understand your fears. You’re a father and...I would go crazy if Dimitri went missing too.”

“Ah. I think I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“Son, hold onto this one. He’s a keeper,” Lambert merely said, chuckling with his shoulder shaking a bit.

He kept laughing, even as he slipped out the room and down the hall, not once acknowledging how Felix shot up from his seat, red and rambling madly. But the king was already far gone and Felix was just left staring at the spot where the man once stood in his depressive humor. He was silently still, a statue in the half darkness, and then Dimitri’s hand tugged on his. The trance broke and the dark-haired boy tended to him immediately.

“I think he likes you,” Dimitri said in a weak voice, even trying a smile.

“He didn’t like me so much when I first came to him. Began shouting words like ‘the beast showed up’ and ‘you took my son’!”

“I mean…”

“Dimitri.”

“Right, I’m sorry,” the prince said with a soft laugh. His cold fingers slowly slipped in between Felix’s and they closed their hands together, allowing the warmth to seep into their shared skins. Dimitri smiled, especially when the corners of Felix’s mouth twitched. “I’m so happy the curse is broken. It is broken, right? You’re not on some hour timer?”

“It’s been _days_ , Dimitri.” Felix stopped. “I still feel like I’m going to turn any day now. It’s...scary, really. That I would just transform right in front of your eyes and never turn back. It’s incredibly petrifying.”

“I would love you either way.”

“You can’t marry a wolf.”

“So you _were_ thinking of marriage, then. Good to know.”

Felix’s hand wretched out his grip and lightly slapped him on the shoulder with a huff. His cheeks are still burning and his eyes have returned to the flame, flickering wildly with emotion. The boy scoffed and turned away, crossing his arms. Dimitri kept staring at him; butterflies of memory rustled between the boys, soft moments between the two of them and the sanctuary of the mansion.

But they were neither in the mansion and were sitting in a room of the largest and grandest castle of the northern kingdom. In one room were knights. In the other were maids. And downstairs were more servants. No privacy. And yet, Dimitri and Felix were so locked into each other’s presence that their space was practically unattainable and unreachable.

“When did you like me?” Dimitri finally asked.

“Don’t use the word ‘like’. Makes us sound a pair of schoolgirls with crushes. Speak properly, Dimitri,” Felix muttered harshly beneath his hot breath. He was staring at his fingers, fumbling awkwardly about, and refusing to meet Dimitri’s warm gaze flooding upon his figure.

“When did you love me?”

“At the thicket.”

The prince cocked his head curiously. “First sight?”

“ _Come on_. I saw the way your eyes lingered when you caught me bathing that first night. Beat off, Dimitri,” Felix scoffed, rolling his eyes and shook his head.

It was the prince’s turn to blush, and it brought some color to the sickly paleness of his face. But he did not turn away; it was not his nature. He kept on staring, even leaning in a bit and taking in Felix’s face with his hands. He’s cheating death by simply touching Felix too intimately in his most vulnerable moment, but in that second, he hardly had a care.

“You’re so...devastatingly beautiful in more ways I can say. I like to listen to your voice at night, knowing that you’re only speaking for me, and me alone. Your words, both harsh and lovely, pierce me like an arrow—you are the ghost invading the dark room of my mind. You absolutely immobilize me and shake my world. You walk, flashing those terribly cruel eyes, and I feel like dying in your arms. I don’t think I will ever love anyone else in this world like you, who could make himself both my enemy and my lover. Felix, I love you.”

“I…like your face. You have a really nice face,” Felix uttered in short, choking bursts. His red eyes were getting wet again and Dimitri swallowed down an urge to laugh.

“I only have one eye, Felix.”

“Okay. You have a somewhat nice face.”

“Enough for a catch like yourself?”

“Just keep washing my back and scratch behind my ears once in a while, and I’ll stick around until we’re both old and deaf,” Felix said and leaned over, his lips hovering over Dimitri’s in anticipation. A small smile slit across his beautifully intense face, and their hands clasped over once again tightly, afraid of letting go. “I love you, Dimitri. Because you’re mine. We were born for each other.”

“No speech?”

“I’m not you. But I have a feeling you don’t need to hear anymore.”

“Just two words at the wedding. And nevermore,” Dimitri whispered.

He summoned as much strength as he could, prompted himself on his elbows and met Felix’s lips halfway in an aching, brutal kiss. For true loves were acts in itself, of complete and mutual devotion.

____________________

Five years after the successful raid on the rebels of Fraldarius, the new king of Faerghus had finally married.

His ‘blushing’ bride, a dark-haired vagabond from the region, was neither a nobleman or a politically-important figure. Just a man. One with a sharp tongue, red dagger eyes, and the ability to make any lively room shut down in silence. All in all, the new queen of Faerghus was both an enigma and a source of great detest.

Critics of the controversial marriage pointed to the lengths King Dimitri had to go through in order to court the man, who suddenly moved to Derdriu by the turn of the king’s twenty-third birthday.

The Leicester alliance was neutral to the northern kingdom for decades and for the sole reason of courtship alone, the king underwent tremendous negotiations for a declaration of friendship and an open border policy. Just to court a peasant man in Derdriu.

Of course, King Dimitri’s critics had initially believed such efforts were the result of some darker intention—was his majesty being blackmailed? Hexed? Tricked? At the end of the day, no one found the answer: King Dimitri kissed his bride at what many considered to be the strangest place for a wedding—some dilated mansion in the Fraldarius wilderness, everyone in attendance bore witness to a mutual and suffocating love. One that even made the most senior of couples coo with young love. 

The royal couple spent the next few months apart; the king stayed at the capital and worked on eradicating the hostile landscape and bringing justices to the various provinces while the queen stayed in Fraldarius, trying to repair the region beyond its former shadow to glory. And to gradually repair the abandoned mansion from the ground up.

The queen was, unlike his cheery husband, incredibly cynical and sullen. Every word from him came out like the bite of a beast and he hardly gave in to weak excuses or sob stories. That said, everyone was in agreement of his tireless efforts to both improve the region and lives of the people in the kingdom.

Finally, once the work was all done, the Fraldarius mansion was a shining beacon, warm and filled with light. An example of what the entire province had become under the queen’s eye—prosperous and like that of a personal haven in the northern kingdom. And no one knew that better than the royal couple themselves.

While people continued to spread rumors of curses and manipulation from the queen, no one can deny the clear and consuming love the pair shared between one another in both the public life and the private.

At various parties and celebrations, neither one of them liked to stay apart with the dark-haired queen hovering near his husband’s side and glaring at various diplomats with a protective glare. He moved like a shield strapped to the king’s back, so ready to step forward and keep others at bay. Their hands always clasped together tightly and they moved as one unit.

In private, only the servants witnessed the true extent of their bottomless love. Every month, King Dimitri and the queen took a weekend stay at the Fraldarius mansion with just a handful of aides. And as they went about, cleaning the now-renovated mansion and cooking the queen’s bloody game for the day, they always passed a side glance at the royal couple. They shared soft, biting kisses, went to bathe together in the bathhouse, and even hunted until dusk.

The most intimate moments were the ones where King Dimitri would just snake his hands into the base of his queen’s scalp whenever they were sharing a moment; his long fingers rubbing the soft spot behind his ears. The queen’s red eyes slowly closed behind his dark lashes and he leaned into the touch with a shuddering sigh. It was a small, small act. But enough to make the maid coo from their hiding spots, giggling pink.

And naturally, this great dance of absolute romance continued on until the end of their days. 

It should be noted that centuries later when the Fraldarius mansion was turned into a historical site and landmark under the United Fódlan government, historians found something of great interest that could bring answers to the long mystery of King Dimitri’s marriage to the dark-haired stranger from Fraldarius.

In the foyer, hanging right above the mantle of the staircase greeting all visitors who stepped foot in the mansion, was a shield. A shining, golden shield whose facade had survived the long years without a scratch or a spot of rust.

A sign of eternal devotion. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be posted on Dimitri's birthday but I'm so slow. Happy late birthday, king. I'm sorry that this is a day late. Accept my poor offering with this shitty beauty and the beast AU. 
> 
> A special thanks to my work wife, [MistressAkira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressAkira/works) whose amazing work can be found on AO3. She's been the void in which I throw up my ideas into
> 
> I have a [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/Meatbike344) Come and hang out!


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